Placing Bets, Ctd

Balko and Les Bernal have finished off their debate on the legality of gambling. Here's part of Balko's closing argument:

Any number of our day-to-day decisions can have indirect repercussions on lots of other people. If you're going to argue that we should prohibit gambling because problem gamblers might go into debt, causing hardship on their families, or requiring them to seek publicly funded social services or welfare, you could make similar arguments for banning everything from unprotected sex, to laying on the beach, to rock climbing, to investment banking, to pie. There are people who enjoy all of these things to excess, or with an insufficient appreciation of  their risk. Some indirectly harm others or require publicly funded medical care or assistance as a result. But we don't talk about banning them. (At least not yet!)